


the brightness of the stars

by FabulousPotatoSister



Series: Dancing On the Edge of Infinity [5]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: (it's a series now!), (kind of?), (saucy ;V), (would you believe I am actually not yet done with this?), Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blindness, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Kissing, Torture, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 03:55:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21293216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FabulousPotatoSister/pseuds/FabulousPotatoSister
Summary: “Stay with us. Come on, stay with us.”You and the Doctor reunite after a harrowing experience, and things are different now.
Relationships: The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Reader, Thirteenth Doctor/Reader
Series: Dancing On the Edge of Infinity [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1534973
Comments: 15
Kudos: 139





	the brightness of the stars

**Author's Note:**

> This one's a direct sequel to "kadiliman", as I've always wanted to write some recovery stuff for that fic, and guess what - it's a series now guys! There might be more fics after this that'll be set before this incident, which is why I've made it a series now. 
> 
> Enjoy the fic! (sorry for not posting fics for five months thats on me)
> 
> EDIT 1/2/2020: edited a dialogue line for continuity!! happy spyfall part one lads

_“Oh my God, what happened?”_

_“Is she – “_

_“– need to get to the med bay – “_

_“Doctor, are you alright?”_

_“Stay with us. Come on, stay with us.”_

* * *

The first thing you feel is softness.

There’s something soft on your back, under your arms and under your head, and you feel like you’re in a warm embrace of cotton, and it feels _wrong_.

You’re in a bed. Bed? Not your bed. A cot? You shift – a mistake, because pain lances through your leg, wrenching a small cry from the back of your throat. That pain spreads like wildfire through the rest of your body, starting with your legs, to your chest, to your arms and then to your eyes –

_Your eyes._

Your hands fly up to your face, your fingers feeling at the bumps and scars until they come to your eyes, you were blind before this and you’re still blind now – your fingers find cloth where your eyes should be, and another cry escapes you. _What did they do to me? I was gone, and then I…_

You try to grab at the faint memory, but the pain pulsing through your body is too much. It floats away. Your fingers – searching, still searching for something that’ll make all of this make sense – pick at the cloth, trying to take it off so you can finally see, but then there’s a warmth on your hand. It tugs at your wrist, pulling your hands away from your face.

“Don’t do that, you’re still healing,” says a voice. It’s soft, and familiar, and there’s something in the voice that you can’t make out. “You’re not allowed to touch it.”

Words don’t form, but a strangled noise comes out instead. The warmth returns, taking your hand ever so gently, stroking the skin of your palm, minding the cuts and wounds. “It’s okay, it’s me, it’s Yaz.”

“…Yaz?” Your voice is barely a whisper. You can barely hear yourself, drowned out by the sound of your own raging thoughts. Something is keeping you still though, keeping you from lashing out and moving, and so you try to keep it that way. Moving hurts, and maybe you’ve had quite enough of hurting.

“Yes,” Yaz sounds like she’s going to cry, and your heart twists at the thought. “Welcome back.”

_I’m looking for someone. I’m looking for a… _A thought prickles, flickering at the back of your mind, and you try to grab it before it fizzles away.

“The Doctor, where…” You take a deep breath in – that hurts too, a sharp and sudden pain right at your ribs, and your next words hitch a little bit. “Wh – where is she?”

The Doctor – your head pulses, and vaguely you remember being cradled, listening to a double heartbeat before you drifted off. She’d saved your life – she’d come back for you, you needed to see her, where did she go? Were you back on Earth now? Had she dropped you off with Yaz, and – _don’t think like that _– abandoned you?

Something brushes against your cheeks. You hiccup. You’re crying.

_I thought I’d run out of tears back there. _

Your hands lay uselessly at your sides, but your fingers are moving, and you want nothing more than you get up and run away. Your breath hitches in your throat –

“Doctor,” you sob. Your ears are full of cotton and your mouth is full of it too, and talking is _so hard_ but you can’t just seem to shut up – “Doctor, wh – where are you? I – I can’t see, I can’t _see_ – “

“Calm down,” you hear Yaz say, but she’s so far away now. She sounds like she’s underwater. Or are you the one that’s underwater? “Come on, help me.”

You feel hands grab your arms and panic bursts into your head, alarm bells ringing loudly and painfully and you need to get away, need to find the Doctor – a faint memory taps at the bell, you remember being held down and the pain always came after that – so your arms jerk wildly, straining under an unknown grip. You can’t take it again, not when you thought you were safe.

“No, n – no, let go! Let go!” You try to scream – your voice raw and cracking. The hands don’t let go. You squirm, your skin burning. This was it; they were going to hurt you now. “I can’t go back there, I can’t – don’t make me go back there – I - I didn’t tell them any - anything, just p-please let me go!”

Suddenly, you feel cold, and you stop moving – you’re dimly aware of a new warmth, stroking your hair this time, but it feels a lot more different than Yaz’s touch, and a spark of hope lights up within you.

“Just sleep. You’re not going anywhere.”

Nodding slowly, you let yourself go.

* * *

_"I'm going back.”_

_"You can't," Yaz protests. Her hand clings to a lever on the TARDIS console like a vice. Her knuckles are pale, and you think the lever might break. But her voice wavers only slightly. You barely even notice it. "You can't do that. You're gonna get yourself killed!"_

_Ryan's the next to speak up, his eyes wide as he steps forward. "Yaz is right. We should stay here, until the Doctor gets back."_

_"She hasn't been back in hours, guys. Something's wrong." You're in a battle stance right now - ready to bolt, ready to run out of the door at a moment’s notice. It's like there are coils in your legs waiting, just waiting to be released, and every waiting second, they twist tighter and tighter until they might break. Until you don't need their permission to run anymore._

_"Things take time," Graham says solemnly, "even when Doc's in charge -"_

_There's a burst, and the console room wobbles. Then, a loud voice that sounds like it's coming from everywhere rings through the space._

_"We have your ship under our control," the voice booms. Chills run down your spine, and judging from everyone else's faces, you're not alone. "And your captain."_

_Yaz grits her teeth, pulling Ryan’s arm (who protests with a groan) and rushes to the doors. She slams against the door, grabbing at the handle, but the door doesn’t budge. Ryan tries the handles too – nothing. But the Doctor left the doors unlocked… Yaz and Ryan look back at you, eyes wide. _

_"No," you mutter, breathing heavily. She can't be with them - is she captured? Is she in danger? Is she safe? What are they doing with her? Worse, is she - is she -_

_First fear, then apprehension, then white hot anger. Only anger._

_You move faster than you've ever moved. Mimicking the Doctor, you snatch a microphone from the TARDIS console and bring it to your lips, heart hammering away in your chest. "Where is she?"_

_The ice in your voice surprises you._

_"I assure you; she is safe." You hear a deep, rumbling noise. "She is not in our possession right now, but she will be soon."_

_In our possession. What an ugly phrase. Your fingers grip the microphone. "What do you want?"_

_"We only want answers," the voice croons. "Your captain is a fine specimen. So is her ship. We would resort to - drastic measures to get such things. With a multitude of information. And secrets."_

_The voice drags out the word "secrets"._

_You don't want to think about it. You refuse to think about it. About the Doctor, locked away somewhere, alone, all her secrets ripped out of her and then discarded like some kind of useless thing. About how these aliens would react if they found out about her true biology - what would they do? What could they do?_

_And what would you do if you lost her?_

_"I know her secrets," you say, "better than anyone. We're equals. Take me instead."_

_You hear Yaz gasp "No! You can't!", in the background. It makes your heart clench, in the worst way. You know you're being stupid. You know this could probably get you killed. Not probably. It would most likely get you killed. _

_But they'd be alive. You think about the rest of the team, all bright futures ahead of them, and her - the Doctor - who was needed. Earth needed her. The universe needed her. The rest of the team needed her. You, on the other hand -_

_"Me for her." You keep going. No backing down now. "If I come to you, you let her back onto our ship safely."_

_A thoughtful pause. "And how do we know we can trust this bargain?"_

_Before you can open your mouth, another voice rings through the TARDIS. One painfully familiar, and painful in so many other ways._

_"The Doctor to Team TARDIS," the Doctor says, voice clear as day. It makes your chest hurt. "I've set up a makeshift communications array from a part of the ship, using my sonic. Love my sonic. I'm making my way back to the TARDIS. Looks like the ship's empty."_

_Stupid! Stupid, stupid, one braincell decision. Your hands are slippery now, the microphone threatening to slip out of your clammy hands and clatter to the floor. But it's your lifeline right now. So, you hang on._

_"Doctor, I'm sorry," you breathe. You can hear her stop._

_"Sorry for what?" Her voice grows tighter. I know, I know. "What's going on?"_

_"Just - get back to the TARDIS, please." Your heart hammers faster. You feel faint. "The ship's - the ship's not empty. Someone on here wants you."_

_She goes quiet. Then she says your name - "...What have you done?"_

_"I'm - I'm more - I know her." Ignoring her, you croak out an answer. "She trusts me. I can tell you everything. Everything you need to know. As long as you let everyone go."_

_"Everything?"_

_You turn back towards the crew, dropping your hands. They're all frantic now, pleading with you to do something else. _

_They have so much left for them. _

_"Don't do this," the Doctor warns._

_Still looking at them, you bring the microphone back to your lips one more time. "...Everything."_

_And then you know nothing._

_Nothing except pain, searing pain, roaring through your veins and through every part of your body until you're numb. Sounds. Vague noises, shapes, feelings under your fingertips. Smooth cloth that smells like vanilla. Your memories feel like seaweed on a raging beach, pulled out and then back in again. _

_“Why do you never – “_

* * *

“– listen to me?”

The Doctor watches as your body falls, pliant against the soft sheets of the bed. She watches as you shudder against the sheets before stilling, taking in deep, shaky breaths. She watches, and the only thing she can do is _watch_, and she has never felt more useless.

Yaz lets out a long breath. When she turns to look at the Doctor, her eyes are full of desperation – and the Doctor chides herself for being selfish. Everyone else is scared, and it isn’t just her. Yaz stands up from her spot near your bed, and moves to stand next to the Doctor.

“I don’t know what happened,” Yaz starts, slowly, her voice thick with emotion, “she was gone for just a while and she comes back – she comes back like this.”

Yaz lets her gaze drift back to your form on the bed. The Doctor knows she’s looking at the expanse of bruises that litter your skin, and the web of scars and cuts that cover your arms. Among the thin, white scars, there are new wounds, still raw and still red. The Doctor knows she’s looking at your tear-blotched face, looking at the tears that still slip out from under your bandaged eyes.

“How’d this happen, Doctor?” Yaz swallows.

For once, the Doctor doesn’t know.

“I’ll take care of her,” she says, surprised at how her voice comes out strained. “You - get some rest. Tell Ryan and Graham –“

Yaz doesn’t let her finish. “I will.”

The Doctor nods shortly, letting herself look at Yaz walking out of the med bay before she – quite painfully – turns her gaze back to you. You’re still sleeping – which is good, you need to sleep, you need to heal. She sits down, slowly, at the edge of your bed, and peels off the edge of the blanket that’s covering your stomach. You stir, and mumble something incoherently.

So, you weren’t fully asleep. _Of course, _The Doctor thinks. She didn’t give you too big of a dose of sedative, just enough to calm you down and keep you from crying out her name _like that_. You shifted again, said something under your breath, but it was louder this time.

“Stop…” You take another breath in. “…stop being so sad.”

The Doctor swallows, feeling her hearts stutter.

“I’m fine.” She tries to sound calm, and tries to keep her voice from trembling. “I’m always alright.”

You furrow your brows, lips twitching into something that look like a frown, before parting slightly. “You… get quiet when you’re sad.”

The Doctor continues to keep her hands busy, lifting the fabric of your shirt and letting herself work. She lifts her sonic to the area, the whirring noise making you furrow your eyebrows even more. Tearing her eyes away from you, she skims through the readings – some of your wounds are months old, and some of them are just hours old, particularly the one on your leg.

“How long were you there?” The Doctor asks, more of a question to herself, but you groan. She looks up from her sonic. You’d started to shake, but not as bad as before, and certainly not as bad as when she’d found you.

“S-stopped,” your voice slurs. Perhaps the sedative was fully kicking in now. “Stopped counting after – after three – no, after four weeks…”

The Doctor’s hearts stop. Her hands stop moving, right in the middle of putting a plaster-like bandage on top of your stomach. Your breath came in little hiccups, and you were crying again. The Doctor hated seeing you cry. Maybe she was glad your eyes were covered.

You keep talking. “Didn’t think – I was gonna see you again. They – they kept saying they were gonna – gonna come for you, a – and for the fam, so I – I didn’t say anything because if I said something they would find out where you guys where – and – ah!”

You jolt, a quick inhale stopped by a sharp pain, and your hands come up to clutch at your chest. The Doctor takes one of your hands and folds it within her own, hoping it’s enough. “A – and they kept asking where you were, and I couldn’t say that, and I – I promise I didn’t say anything, and then I just got up and ran a – away –“

“You’re so brave,” The Doctor says, softly, as gently as she can without letting the anger in her hearts slip through. How could they have done this to you? She brought your hand, clasped in her own, to her chest. “I’m so, so sorry.”

You seem to calm at that, shaky breaths slowing down until they’re slow puffs of air. “Don’t – don’t be sorry. Was m’fault, anyway. Told me to stay put – I didn’t listen.”

The Doctor swallows. You sound so small, and so tired, and so broken. And just hours ago, you had been standing in the console room with her, your eyes wide and sparkling with excitement for another adventure. You’d grabbed the lever with her and held her hand tight as the TARDIS rocked. You’d told her, voice lilting and clear, that you wouldn’t trade travelling with her for anything in the world – no, the universe.

“It’s not your fault,” she says, and she should be mad. She should be angry at you for being so foolish, _yes, you should have followed my instructions. _She should be angry, and she should be lecturing you on how humans are fragile, but how can she when your hand is trembling in hers? How can she be mad when you’re blaming _yourself _for being hurt? “No one ever listens when I say that, anyway.”

You hum, take in another deep breath, and push your head back into the pillows. And then – slowly, surely, you take the Doctor’s hand, still clasping yours, and bring it to your cheek. The warmth of your skin is strange, against her hand.

She murmurs your name, and you purse your lips.

“You’ll be okay.” Your head lolls to one side. “I’ll make sure of that.” 

* * *

_“Where is the TARDIS?”_

_“Like hell I’m gonna tell you that.”_

_That earns you another blow to the stomach, and you wheeze. The alien in front of you leans down to meet your eyes – you feel restraints around your arms, and a metal pole between your elbows, and your knees are cold and strained against the wire floor. They’d threatened to take your vision, for your “insolence”. _

_“I will not ask again,” it says, twirling something between its fingers. A knife? Another mini-torch? The wounds on your arms ache at the sigh of glinting metal, but you’re better. You have to be. “For every question you avoid, we are getting closer to tracking your friends and the Doctor.”_

_You cough – a rattling, wet sound – and you wince at the noise. The alien draws closer, and you shiver despite yourself. “W - we haven’t even been here a day.”_

_There’s a strange, hacking noise, almost rhythmic in the way in increases in volume, and it’s not before you see the alien lower its weapon and bring its hand to its chest that you realize what it’s doing._

_It’s **laughing**_ **.**

_“You don’t know that, little human.” It sneers, almost crooning, and it lifts the metal to meet your arm. The metal is cold against your skin, and then suddenly – it breaks through, your arm suddenly damp, the pain sharp and vivid – your sight blurs at the edges, and your throat strains, then you realize you’re screaming. _

_You manage to turn your head to the side. Your stomach turns at how the metal is embedded into your arm, as its been done many times before. _

_“Your kind is so weak. So easy to… expose. All soft flesh.”_

_How long have you been here, actually?_

_“I can keep it there, if you wish. It’ll hurt more if I remove it.” The alien steps back. It places a hand under your chin and you meet its eyes – they’re like ice, in their coldness, and you try to counter it with your own fire. It flickers, threatening to become a blaze, but the alien reaches out and twists the metal in your arm._

_The fire is extinguished as fast as it is lit. You cry out – your body is begging you, no more, please, but you have to be better. _

_For them, because of them – _

_“Hmm? What was that?” The alien grips your chin even harder, tough skin too rough against bruised skin. “You’ll give them up?”_

_“Never.” It’s growled, both in pain and in anger. _

_“Shame.” It’s twisted, again, and another scream spills past your lips. Tears, hot and sticky, roll off your skin and onto the floor. You just try to keep breathing – deep, shuddering breaths, even if it hurts to even breathe and by extension, hurts to keep staying alive. “I really thought we’d be able to break you.”_

_“Not – not on my watch,” you splutter, feeling iron on your tongue, spilling past your lips._

_“And just before this, you were so willing to give up information,” the alien croons, mouth curling in a way you can’t describe. “Last of her kind. So old, so powerful. Do you even know what she is? How dangerous she is?”_

_The metal rubs against something, and you suck in a breath. Its pulling it out. “Do you know what she’s done, how many planets she’s razed? What she did to her own kind?”_

_She’s coming for you; they’re going to find you – be better. “She – she is – so m – much more than that.” And you mean it – she is so much more than her history, and her anger._

_The alien lets out a low hum – and with a terrible noise, the metal comes out, clanking to the floor. You feel your arm getting damper, rivulets running down your skin and onto your side, but it’s getting numb too. _

_“Will you open your mouth, pretty human?” _

_You bite the inside of your cheek – and if you draw blood, you never taste it. “Never.”_

_“I understand how humans like to see.” There’s a sound of metal scraping against metal. The alien is picking up the shiny piece again. Between its fingers, it almost looks like a jewel, glowing silver and red in the dim light. “You will never see your friends again.”_

_“You think I’m afraid of that?” you spit, in a moment of lucidity. “I’d do – absolutely anything for them.”_

_“Would you die?”_

_You don’t reply to that – instead, you bare your teeth, your lips, cracked and bleeding, pulling over your gums to reveal teeth stained red. Maybe you would, you think hazily, if it meant they got to keep going. Maybe you would, if it meant that she would keep going. _

_A loud grunt, and then sudden, sharp pain in your thigh – the metal slices through skin and through muscle and your throat is hoarse – the pain burns, but nothing burns more than the thought of not being able to see your fam again. _

_Be better, you think numbly, as your head starts to loll to one side. Be better. For her. _

_The Doctor says she’s a doctor of hope, standing in a white corridor with people around her. She is hope, with her blonde hair and her hazel eyes, a riot of color in an empty room, a whirlwind of chaos amongst order. She is hope in the way that she lifts people up, makes them feel – more. She is hope in the way that you have hopelessly – _

_“Maybe you will.”_

_Hope is all you have right now, and now you’re falling, and falling, into the darkness…_

* * *

You jolt.

_Danger. Danger!_

The alarm bells haven’t stopped ringing yet, and it’s still dark – your hands scramble to grasp at the cloth covering your eyes. Your fingers find fabric, slightly damp, and they curl around it. You squeeze your eyes shut and tear it away –

It’s too bright, too much. You whine, a strangled noise, because everything still hurts and it’s too much and is it too much to want everything to stop? There are soft sheets under you and under your skin and while it doesn’t feel bad, it still feels – _wrong. _You scramble, and then there isn’t a bed beneath you. Your fall, hard, onto the floor. The floor collides with your elbow and your vision flashes a horrid red as you let out a keening wail.

_Danger. You need to get away. You need to escape!_

Yes, escape – this is your chance! You struggle to your feet, swaying, still in a haze, but the adrenaline pumping through your veins propels you forward and out into a dimly-lit hallway.

You feel against the wall, feeling rounded edges and bumps. It’s not like – like _before._ The air is warm instead of cold and biting, and the floor is smooth. It doesn’t dig into your skin.

Are you somewhere else?

_No, _you think, _I can’t be somewhere else – they have to be tricking me, making me think I’ve been rescued – I can’t fall for that, I’m better. I have to be. _There is an ocean pounding in your ears and its waves sharpen the already smooth rocks on the beach, making jagged edges that tear at old wounds and do nothing but be cruel reminders of pain.

“_Where did she go_? You lot, if she’s gone off somewhere -”

You reach out again. It’s still an empty space, and you try to grab small flickers of memory that pass over your darkened vision – you need to remember where you are, and why you’re here – so you reach out, and you grab, and you pull - !

“Hey! What are you – “

You’ve grabbed cloth, not a memory, and a bubble of sadness that’s been building just bursts. You burst with it – you burst into tears.

A plethora of apologies spill out of your mouth as you blubber, the more awake part of you now shaking its head in disappointment. You clutch at the cloth you’ve grabbed – then you’re pulled forward, into a sturdy chest, with a familiar smell, beating a familiar rhythm. 

“Doctor,” you mumble. It comes out more like a question.

The Doctor hums, and you blink – once, twice – then a whirring noise, and when you blink again, she is right in front of you, her face marred with worry, the telltale crease in between her eyebrows deepening with every slow blink you take. Her hair, curling slightly, falls over her face, covering her eyes. Her mouth is pulled into a deep frown, one she only wears when she’s absolutely upset – but your heart does flips.

She _is _hope, and hope is beautiful.

“Hey, stay awake for me, love,” she murmurs. Reaches out to smooth your hair away from your face. _Love._ “Don’t want you passing out on us again.”

Now it’s your turn to hum. You’re just – taking it all in now. The crashing waves have met their shore once again, and the ocean is calm.

“Are you alright?”

_Better now that you’re here, _but that goes unsaid. Suddenly, you’re weightless, and you realize that the Doctor has lifted you, carrying you firmly in her arms, and then you remember that she _isn’t human _and is totally allowed to do those things. She takes long purposeful strides, still holding your form in her arms. You drift off despite yourself.

You wake to someone stroking your hair, pushing it away from your eyes. You sigh contentedly, and the touch disappears. _No! _You make a plaintive noise, which grants you an amused hum.

“Alright,” you hear the Doctor say. You blink your eyes, blearily taking in the room you’re in – it’s _your _room, full of all the knickknacks that you’ve collected over your adventures, and a warm light drifting from the “windows” – windows that the Doctor put in after she learned about human sleep cycles. You hear a soft, but amused, huff. “I’m not leaving.”

You feel the side of your bed dip. The Doctor leans over, peering everywhere but your eyes – looking at the different wounds that litter your arms and legs. You watch her as she purses her lips in thought, then turns away and bends over to pick something off of the ground. She emerges with a roll of gauze between her fingers.

Her mouth’s pulled into a thin line as she works, deftly applying the gauze to your arms. You watch as the gauze hardens into a plaster-like material. She doesn’t look at you. She’s completely silent, hands working almost automatically without any input from her mind.

When her fingers graze a more sensitive cut, you whine – you watch as her face falls and darkens.

The more lucid part of your brain – the one that’s actually awake – recalls the Doctor’s face when you visited Rosa, when she met Krasko, and how she grasped her neck and her face turned into something that wasn’t entirely human. You remember a past life of hers, bold and furious. The Oncoming Storm, he’d called himself, defiant against time itself. And when you look closely, there _is _a storm brewing in the Doctor’s hazel eyes.

“Doctor,” you try, your voice scraping against your throat in all the worst ways. The Doctor doesn’t seem to hear you, but she stops to rest her hand on your thigh. The one that was stabbed. “Doctor, hey.”

The Doctor lifts her head. She was staring at your leg, your abdomen the only thing covered with a blanket.

“Hey.” Your voice comes out as a whisper. You let a cough rattle your chest. “You get quiet when you’re sad, you know that.”

The Doctor’s eyes widen a fraction – in recognition, you realize. Had you said that before? You try again, “Or when you’re mad. Are you mad?” Anxiety bubbles up in your chest – for some reason, it’s muted, like it’s been soothed before.

She’s silent for a while. _She looks so old_, you muse, _and so lonely. _She’s grasping at the gauze that’s still in her hand, refusing to meet your eyes.

“Doctor, I’m gonna be okay.” You don’t believe it yourself, but anything, _anything _to stop making her look so haunted. ”I’m here now, I – I’ve got you –“

The Doctor finally looks up. She raises her head quickly, raising her eyes, stormy and dark, to meet yours – her mouth still drawn in a tight line, she presses her hands to herself. You’ve never seen her this _angry_ before, if she even is angry. With the Doctor, it was always hard to tell how she was feeling –

“If I hadn’t been there,” she starts, slowly, “you would have died.”

Your heart twists. _True, though_. You can’t argue with that. If the Doctor hadn’t found you that day, if she had been a second too late, if someone else had heard your screams, then you would be dead, and they’d be none the wiser. “…right.”

The Doctor frowned, her lips pulling more downward than usual. “You were in a –“

“Pocket dimension,” you finish. The Doctor’s frown grows deeper. “Yeah, they told me. They were trying to get me to say where the TARDIS was.”

“We never left the ship,” the Doctor mutters. If it was possible for her eyes to get any darker, it apparently was. “We were on that ship that whole time.”

“For the hour I was gone. By their scans, you’d already – “ _No. No crying, not in front of her. _You swallow, wrenching your eyes away from the Doctor. “You - You’d already left.”

“…_Oh_.”

There’s a world of sadness in that little word, a universe of it in fact, so much that the tears you’d been trying to hold back finally slip out and pour, uninterrupted, in hot trails across your face. You lift your hands to your face to wipe them, to _hide_ because that was what kept you safe – but the Doctor catches your hands in hers.

“None of that,” she says. She puts your hands back down on the bed and places her own hands on your cheeks. Her thumbs brush away the tears still rolling down your cheeks. When you shakily look up to meet her eyes, they aren’t completely clear, the storm still brewing in the distance, but she offers you a small smile. “You brave, brave human.”

The compliment warms you. “Y- You aren’t mad?”

“I should be.” The Doctor sighs. “Couldn’t be mad, though, not when I found you like – like that.” She swallows again, and grips at the blanket covering your middle. She pulls it down, slowly, until you can’t see your legs. Until she can’t see the large cut on your thigh that’s definitely going to scar in the future.

“I – we almost lost you today,” she whispers, finally holding your gaze. She’s picking her words, you realize. “You know, the fam would miss you a lot if you were gone.”

“_You_ wouldn’t?”

The Doctor doesn’t answer that. She leans forward instead, pushing her body weight until there’s barely any space between the two of you. She’s never been _this_ close to you, her breath fanning over your face and her eyes so close they’re burning pinpricks into the back of your head.

If the world didn’t exist right now, you’d believe it, because right now it’s just you and her in an endless expanse and nothing else. She isn’t speaking and you aren’t breathing.

You move forward, and lean your forehead against hers – her breathing hitches, and you feel _love, _you feel _loved. _The feeling is gone as soon as it passes, but the Doctor keeps her forehead resting against yours.

“You wouldn’t miss me?” you echo, whispering in the small space between you, and the Doctor lets out a breath and _smiles_.

“Maybe,” she whispers back, and when she closes the gap between the two of you, you swear you see stars.

The feeling of her lips on your is magical, even if you swear magic doesn’t exist – the touch of her lips is gentle, aware of your injuries and your probably swollen face, and you feel flattered enough that she’s kissing you when you probably look like hell. You’re drowning in her universe, in all of the stars that she keeps in her eyes, and you think that you wouldn’t trade this for anything in the world.

“Ow.”

“Told you that’d hurt.”

“You didn’t tell me anything.”

**Author's Note:**

> Oop, no confession yet! We'll deal with that later ;)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> tumblr: @fabulouspotatosister


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